Yes but wrong does not equal neglect or abuse. There are plenty of groups in NJ and elsewhere that openly do pox parties and while I think they are not the right thing for our family, they don't rise to the standard of neglect or abuse that would have DCP&P get involved.

We see how tough things have been for Crabby when her family tried to sic the authorities on her because of her veganism, why would you wish that on another family?

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Because giving your baby chicken pox so he DIES is perhaps a bit more serious than feeding one's kid a balanced and nutritious vegan diet? I mean, damn. It's a possibly fatal disease, and you're rubbing your baby all over it? What the heck.

Obviously I can't tell you what to do, and you can't tell them what to do, but MAN that peas me the fork off. People are stupid and selfish and I really hope none of their babies die because of it, because weirdly enough, I like babies.

Probably CPS (DCP&P? What does that stand for? Ours is Child Protective Services) would just say something stupid too, like it's the parent's choice, since otherwise they'd have to deal with anti-vaxers too and that might mean doing something about an actual threat to society and they wouldn't have time to go harass vegan parents.

Yes but wrong does not equal neglect or abuse. There are plenty of groups in NJ and elsewhere that openly do pox parties and while I think they are not the right thing for our family, they don't rise to the standard of neglect or abuse that would have DCP&P get involved.

We see how tough things have been for Crabby when her family tried to sic the authorities on her because of her veganism, why would you wish that on another family?

I don't know if I am comfortable with the idea of sending the government after families who do this but I think that it deserves a strong condemnation. It is a terrible idea with possibly tragic outcomes. Vaccines are safe and effective. Period.

I also don't think that purposely exposing an infant to disease is quite the same thing as veganism. It's not really a fair comparison.

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

Honest question, as someone who is both totally fine with vaccinations in general and also got chicken pox as an adult and it sucked...getting chicken pox as a kid gives you more immunity than the vax, right? So, dangerous for a 5-month old baby, that makes sense, but do you guys think chicken pox parties are problematic for older kids?

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

Division of Child Protection and Permanency. Are we really going to call anti-vaxers a threat to society? We all just want the best for our kids, and perhaps the best way to get that is by taking the hyperbole and fearmongering out of the vax debate that comes from all sides. Vaccines aren't made of aborted fetuses and poison and people who don't vaccinate aren't actually irresponsible monsters. All of us weigh the information and the risks and this is an issue where reasonable people can come to different decisions. That isn't criminal and its not abuse or neglect.

Quote:

I also don't think that purposely exposing an infant to disease is quite the same thing as veganism. It's not really a fair comparison.

Do you really think I was comparing the two? My point was just that when well-meaning people call the authorities because they disagree with a parent's decision it can have unintended negative consequences. TCC's posts have been so enlightening on that.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I don't think it's particularly awful for older kids, though still not something I think is really very rational.

For a 5 month old though? I do think that's awful and bordering on child endangerment. I don't see how purposefully taking a 5 month old somewhere where you know there's an outbreak of a disease that can be fatal to infants and hoping that your baby catches said disease can be anything but a really, really bad idea.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your original post but personally, I wouldn't be okay with that aspect.

I agree C&S. I think reasonable people can differ on pox parties for older kids, but having a baby under 6 months exposed seems too risky for me. My experience with chxpox wasn't as bad as Vantine's but it was pretty bad and not anything I'd wish on my kid. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... us/248768/

Also on pg 1 of this thread annak mentioned pox parties, so yay, full circle!

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Last edited by Tofulish on Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I absolutely will. Anti-vaxers rely on herd immunity whilst also weakening it. Anti-vaxers contract and spread illnesses that should be all but wiped out at this point. Anti-vaxers endanger those of among us who can't vaccinate and have impaired immune systems (I know we have a few such folks on the boards).

Anti-vaxers are not just selfish, they are dangerously misinformed and they threaten the babies who are too young for vaccines, the elderly who can't handle something like pertussis (which is a hassle for a young person but deadly for an old person), and the immuno-compromised. I have no time or respect for anti-vaxers.

_________________"I'd rather have dried catshit! I'd rather have astroturf! I'd rather have an igloo!"~Isa

"But really, anyone willing to dangle their baby in front of a crocodile is A-OK in my book."~SSD

My first year, one kid came to school with pink eye because it was "no big deal." He was sent home, but about 30 kids still got it and then were out.

In my class, I had a kid with strepe (before she knew). Almost one third of my class got it.

Anytime we have a sick kid, we get many empty seats in the following days. And that's for fairly trivial stuff. Now imagine this scenario: 10 kids in a class have anti-vax parents. One of the many kids with families around the world goes somewhere over winter break with diseases we don't worry about here and brings something back.

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

And referring back to page 1 (and annak), its really problematic to assume that everyone who doesn't agree with you on this is "dangerously misinformed." There are some very smart people choosing not to vaccinate, and they're doing it after a lot of research. They aren't misinformed. If we could have a discussion on this topic with a less heated level of rhetoric perhaps it would be conducive to understanding other people points of view.

I don't understand why antivaxers don't vaccinate against the "big" diseases (MMR, DTaP, polio), but I can see why you would skip certain vaccines like chxpox, the Hep B (in infants) or the flu shot. I weigh the risks, I do my research and I make a decision. They do the same thing but come to a different conclusion. I'd like to understand why that is, because I don't. But a big part of why I don't is that this is such a positional issue that people treat those that don't agree with them as dangerous idiots and don't actually look at what they are saying.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Personally, I think you have a better chance at civil, reasonable discussion if you find some random prolife demonstrators outside a PP clinic.

Again, speaking as a teacher, almost anything can set off some parents. I got yelled at last week by a parent for calling to discuss his son's failing grade. Apparently "I'm the teacher" and should have been talking to the son and not the father, and apparently the son didn't understand that he would get a grade in the class. It was bizarro world.

I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Is is a big topic of discussion among teachers, and one issue is that so many parents can't get the perspective to step back, even if they have done all the research.

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

Division of Child Protection and Permanency. Are we really going to call anti-vaxers a threat to society?

Yup. Diseases that were vastly damaging and crippling are coming back? How is that anything but a threat to society? More on this a couple of paragraphs down.

Quote:

I also don't think that purposely exposing an infant to disease is quite the same thing as veganism. It's not really a fair comparison.

Do you really think I was comparing the two? My point was just that when well-meaning people call the authorities because they disagree with a parent's decision it can have unintended negative consequences. TCC's posts have been so enlightening on that.[/quote]

No, I haven't been particularly clear either. I don't think they're the same.

The biggest problem I have with not vaccinating is that it's not just a decision a parent is (however wrongly) making for their own child, but that it's a decision they are making for other people. If you starve or beat your own kid, that's just your kid affected. If you don't vaccinate your kid, that has the potential of exposing other children or babies or immune-compromised adults to those diseases. That decision, not to vaccinate, carries over to other people. It's like running around with an assault rifle with 29 blanks and a single live round. Spray it across a crowd-- maybe you miss, yay! Maybe you wound somebody, which is pretty bad. Maybe you kill somebody with that one bullet. Whoops. "But officer, it was quite unlikely that anyone would be injured when I fired-- there was only one live bullet!" It's still an irresponsible thing to do.

And referring back to page 1 (and annak), its really problematic to assume that everyone who doesn't agree with you on this is "dangerously misinformed." There are some very smart people choosing not to vaccinate, and they're doing it after a lot of research.

What research? Is there credible research that says it's actually bad?

At this point, every anti-vaccination study has been refuted, proven inaccurate, or revealed as straight-up lies.

I would be fascinated to see what people are reading that leads them not to vaccinate if they are genuinely not being misinformed by it. (Really, I would-- I haven't found anything, and I've looked, so where are they finding it? I need to add it to my sources.)

But if there isn't anything, or they're relying on the old bad research, then yes. They are dangerously misinformed.

I would be fascinated to see what people are reading that leads them not to vaccinate if they are genuinely not being misinformed by it. (Really, I would-- I haven't found anything, and I've looked, so where are they finding it? I need to add it to my sources.)

You should spend more time on Mothering.com

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Honest question, as someone who is both totally fine with vaccinations in general and also got chicken pox as an adult and it sucked...getting chicken pox as a kid gives you more immunity than the vax, right? So, dangerous for a 5-month old baby, that makes sense, but do you guys think chicken pox parties are problematic for older kids?

First, no, you don't necessarily get better immunity from getting the disease than the virus. Most people will achieve immunity from one vaccine, and the current vaccine schedule has children receive a second booster, so almost everyone will get full immunity from the shot. Also, the kids who are the exceptions and do not get full immunity will generally have a much less severe reaction to the disease if they do get it, so there are still benefits.

I also think chicken pox parties are problematic for older kids. There chicken pox strains going around these days are often more severe than the strains that were around when we were kids. Chicken pox can be deadly, and who it's deadly for is completely unpredictable. Sometimes complications are directly from the disease, and sometimes they are secondary, like the sore from the pox getting infected with the flesh eating bacteria.

Lastly, the chicken pox vaccine seems to greatly reduce the chance of getting shingles later in life.

There are definitely multiple strains of chxpox, so yes, you can get exposed to one strain and get infected with another strain at a later date. But isn't that a problem with the vaccine as well? Having had a prior exposure means the second one will be less severe.

That said, I hated being sick and I can see that this statistic might be true.

Quote:

7 out of 10 children said given the choice, they'd rather have the shot than have the natural disease.

That is basically what the writer, a teacher, says. When I read her experience I thought of all you've shared. You're definitely not alone.

Oh, good grief, no. Any frustration I've had as a teacher is pretty common. But, my evaluations this year are 50% student test scores. The state had to agree in order to get a waiver from the feds. Basically, because the federal government knows that nobody can meet the ludicrous goals, they give waivers to states so they can keep their funding. The string attached to the Virginia waiver was the new evaluation system.

So: feds know state cant meet impossible goals, so now teachers are evaluated based on their ability to meet these same impossible goals. But, somehow, this is considered a way to ensure quality education for all students. Got it. Sounds great.

Also: I teach in a solid district. Nobody is worried about us. We are referenced across the country as a good district. Budgets are tight, but money is there. We still don't meet these goals. If we don't, who can or will?

Man, now I'm tense. Back to a more relaxing topic like vaccinations...

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

I would be fascinated to see what people are reading that leads them not to vaccinate if they are genuinely not being misinformed by it. (Really, I would-- I haven't found anything, and I've looked, so where are they finding it? I need to add it to my sources.)

You should spend more time on Mothering.com

Okay, but mothering.com is not credible, peer-reviewed literature.

Plus, the first thing I found on mothering.com is a thread where a parent is asking how to fake a vaccination record for their young child. Here is a thread in which women posit that vaccines harm all people based on, well, a feeling? Here is a thread that quotes Dr Wakefield's infamous study and declares that autism can be prevented by a healthy GI tract. Etc. Etc.

These people may be researching extensively but they are certainly not researching well.

_________________"I'd rather have dried catshit! I'd rather have astroturf! I'd rather have an igloo!"~Isa

"But really, anyone willing to dangle their baby in front of a crocodile is A-OK in my book."~SSD

I would be fascinated to see what people are reading that leads them not to vaccinate if they are genuinely not being misinformed by it. (Really, I would-- I haven't found anything, and I've looked, so where are they finding it? I need to add it to my sources.)